


Wish

by havisham



Category: Original Work
Genre: Djinni & Genies, Homecoming, Indian Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:04:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Tamanna is a good-for-nothing aristocrat who returns home after many years away -- but home is far stranger than he remembered it.





	Wish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [metabaron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metabaron/gifts).



It was common knowledge that Tamanna’s family was cursed. 

They had been cursed almost three hundred years ago, but it was only recently -- during Tamanna’s own lifetime, in fact -- that the curse had brought itself to bear on the only living member of the family -- that was to say, Tamanna himself. 

Tamanna’s upbringing had been faultless, his lineage pure, his education the best that could be bought for such a reluctant student. When he was seventeen, he had been sent to England to attend university. But instead of knowledge, he discovered drink and dissipation. 

When his parents died suddenly from an outbreak of cholera, Tamanna was nowhere to be seen. The stately old house that had housed generations of his family was closed up, the fine furniture covered with ghostly white cloth. Everything of value -- the silverware, his mother’s jewelry –- was, naturally, stolen. 

When, finally, some years later Tamanna decided to turn homeward -- changed utterly from the callow boy that had so lightly fled away to a man well past thirty, attractively bearded, as was the fashion of time, his eyes enormous and dark on his thin face -- he was surprised to learn that he was, in fact, destitute. 

All he had to him was his name -- which still had some power to it -- the mouldering old house and grounds, and one aged retainer who had been stubbornly waiting for him. 

“I can’t stay here, I’ll die,” Tamanna had exclaimed in dismay, on the first night after his return. He eyed the damp patches of mold on the walls, the stray weeds that poked out from the delicate latticework of the balcony, the bats that had made their home among the rafters. Everywhere was a scene of decaying splendor, of beauty whose time had long passed. 

Tipu, the servant who had lived and worked there for his entire life said nothing of Tamanna’s outburst. There was not much to say. However horrid Tamanna’s home was, it was the only place that would take him in. 

Tamanna dealt with this situation the best way he knew how -- he took to bed and fell ill, requiring Tipu to wait on him, hand and foot, until he felt that he could face reality. “I suppose I must marry some rich man’s daughter,” he said, though he felt like weeping. “But who would marry such a wretch?” 

Somewhere below, the doorbell rang. Tipu came in, Tamanna’s lunch rattling on a tray. He didn’t act like he’d heard the bell, though it was so loud that it reverberated through Tamanna’s skull as if it was ringing right next to his ear. 

“Tipu!” Tamanna shouted. “Get the door -- must I do _everything?_ ” Overcome with the stress of it all, he reclined in bed and waited until Tipu came shuffling back to announce the invigorating presence of a stranger. 

The stranger introduced himself as Imran, and he was a handsome devil, with flashing eyes and a smile that seemed entirely too sharp to belong in a human mouth. He claimed to be one of Tamanna’s beloved school friends, but Tamanna had no recollection of him. But then again, he had very little recollection of that period of his life at all -- it could be that Imran was indeed his cherished friend from the flower of his youth and that Tamanna, like a cad, had simply forgotten him. 

“I’m glad you’ve come, anyway,” Tamanna said, reaching out to touch Imran’s hand, which felt cold even in the oppressive heat around them. “I have been slowly dying of boredom since I came here.” 

Imran quirked an eyebrow. “You have not been looking for the treasure, then?” 

“What treasure?” Tamanna asked. “The villagers have stolen everything that they could steal when the old zamindar -- that is to say, my father, a devilish old man -- died. All that’s left here is what you see.” 

“You should get your man in here to tell you,” Imran said, making himself comfortable in Tamanna’s favorite chair. “I’m sure he knows.” 

“I am starting to suspect you have ulterior motives for your visit, old friend,” Tamanna said. 

“You’ve never been a dull boy, Tamanna, no matter what they said,” Imran remarked, and then yawned enormously. “It’s been a long journey from Calcutta. Do you mind if I stay here for a few days?” 

“You may stay as long as you like. The food’s poor and the company is frightful, but I won’t chase you off.” 

“You’re too fat to chase anyone away,” Imran said. “I could squish you like a bug from where I sit.” 

Tamanna narrowed his eyes and stared at Imran. Maybe he was beginning to recognize him after all. Was Imran one of those boys that used to delight in tormenting Tamanna’s artistic soul? 

He would do well to be careful now, Tamanna knew. But he’d never been careful, and certainly wasn't about to start. 

*

They squeezed the story out of Tipu easily enough -- Tamanna half-knew already. It was known that during times of crisis and uncertainty, rich families would bury their treasure in great earthenware pots and then flee. Tamanna had heard, of course, of the story of the river breaking its banks and revealing treasures to those on the other shore, only for everything to be lost at the next moment. 

“Do you think my family did that?” Tamanna said, eyeing Tipu suspiciously. Tipu demurred, saying that of course, he would not presume to know what sahib’s family did several centuries ago. Tamanna sighed and said, more to himself than otherwise, “Someone must have written down the location, anyway. No one in this family was ever able to let such things go, except for myself.” 

“Should we look in the archives and see?” Imran asked him. He had long ago finished his meal and had washed with the water and cloth that Tipu had brought him. Tamanna swallowed another ball of rice, allowing himself to think over it. 

“Why not?” he said at last. “Of course, you understand that if we find anything -- if there is anything to find, it will all belong to me.” 

“I’m not looking for the gold,” Imran said, which was puzzling. Aside from the gold, what else could possibly be worth looking for? 

In any case, they set forth the next day to find some evidence of buried treasure. They started in the library, which had been relatively untouched by the recent misfortunes of the house. Other forces had taken a toll, however, as Tamanna found when he carelessly pulled open an old ledger and found himself choking on a cloud of dust and powdered moth’s wings. 

He found a pack of old letters written by a maiden aunt to her beloved, who had died before anything could be done about it. She had kept writing the letters after his death, but presumably not after her own. Tamanna also found a toy tiger that he had thought he had lost many years ago. It was a rather gruesome thing -- the tiger was in middle of devouring a man whole -- outside the tiger’s body only his head was visible, his mouth rounded into a silent scream. 

Now that he looked at it, Tamanna wondered if it was a toy at all. Who had given it to him? He had no recollection of receiving it, but he remembered playing with it one afternoon when he was supposed to be asleep, which had upset his mother. He supposed it was she who had hidden it here, figuring correctly that her lazy son would not venture into this den of books. 

Tamanna left the tiger sitting on the mantel. Perhaps it would have been better to burn it, but he had no desire to start a fire on a day that was so hot. Instead, he went back to his chair and fell asleep. 

Meanwhile. Imran was having better luck with his search, perhaps because he took better care to look. He was a tireless searcher, going on even when Tamanna, exhausted from the day of activity, would curl up in a lumpy chaise-lounge and fall asleep. 

On the third day of the search, Tamanna woke to see Imran standing over him, a large and heavy book in his hand. “I’ve got it,” Imran said, eyes blazing. “Here, in an entry for March 1839 entry, they mention some digging taking place in the courtyard, and then the next month, the house was abandoned. We’ll start there tomorrow.” 

“There?” Tamanna protested. “You don’t mean to dig up the entire courtyard, do you?” 

“Are you in need of it?” Imran said coolly. Tamanna got the idea that he had offended him. He put a placating hand on Imran’s shoulder and suggested that they celebrate his discovery with a drink -- or two. Or three. Tamanna was eager to show his friend where his true strength lay. 

To his delight, Imran agreed. 

*

“Imran, are you married? Widowed? Betrothed? I don't know anything about you.” Tamanna had become loquacious after his third glass of wine. He had brought the wine from abroad, and he dearly would have liked to drink it every day. But even he was not so foolish as that -- he contented himself with local rice wine and tobacco, and saved the good wine.

Imran’s mouth was stained red with wine. “I would never marry,” he said.

“What, never? I would, if I could find someone rich enough and willing to save this place --” Tamanna waved a vague hand around. 

“Is this place worth saving?” 

Tamanna pulled him close. 

“Most would say no,” Tamanna whispered into Imran’s ear. “But I think it is.” 

Imran stared at him. 

Tamanna smiled. “Have you drunk enough, Imran?” 

“I grow bored with your clumsy attempts at seduction,” Imran sighed, and kissed him. 

“You think I am very callow,” Tamanna said, pulling away. He stabbed his finger at Imran’s chest. “You think to unsettle me, do you? You think I would flee from your embrace --” 

“You would, if you weren’t a fool,” Imran said. 

“Are you so dangerous, Imran? Is that why I can’t remember you?” Tamanna's laughter bubbled up in his throat. The sound rose up into the gloomy hall and reverberated strangely. It seemed like a phantom was laughing back at Tamanna. He stopped laughing. 

 

Imran was watching him, his eyes hooded and dark. They circled each other like two tigers after the same wounded deer. Or was he the deer and Imran the tiger? It wasn't as if he hadn't done this before -- Tamanna thought, indeed, that he might prefer the company of men more than women, but to do it here, in the house of his ancestors -- 

Well, it was a little bit more than thrilling. 

But he did not know what Imran felt about it, or indeed what Imran felt about anything. His friend was almost frighteningly opaque, stubbornly resistant to all of Tamanna’s attempts to cajole the truth from him. Imran kissed him hungrily, strong white teeth biting into the tender flesh of Tamanna’s lip. 

Clothes, still damp with the evening bath, were shed, and now-exposed skin, was prodded and pinched. “You're quite babyish still,” Imran said, his voice distant, and Tamanna shuddered at the way he touched him, held his cock, stroked it. 

“Fuck you,” Tamanna said, his voice unsteady. “If you don't want my cock, go get yourself a woman or a hijra. Don't tease me.” 

“You are a crude monster, as most of your class are, despite your airs of refinement.”

“Imran, are you a socialist? I must say, I find your motivations quite opaque.” 

Imran smiled and kissed him again. He was wearing the same smile when he fucked him, a strange distant smile. The night turned murky after that. 

Tamanna woke up the morning afterward with fragments of strange dreams in his memory, dreams of a hundred hands touching him -- not unpleasantly -- and him coming with startling rapidity. Imran was not there when he woke, but that didn't surprise Tamanna. When he did not appear for breakfast, Tamanna grew more concerned.

Tipu did not know where Imran had gone either -- his bed was unslept in as well. Tamanna hummed to himself and nodded.

“Perhaps we've gotten rid of that troublesome guest of ours,” he said, “I'm happy for it, anyway.” 

But Imran returned shortly after noon, with ten men who were ready with shovels and pick axes. They started to dig up the courtyard shortly thereafter. 

Tamanna pulled Imran aside and asked him how he planned to pay these men. “I wasn't lying when I said I have no money,” Tamanna said. “I will not promise them something I cannot give them.” 

“A share of the treasure should be sufficient.” 

“And if no treasure appears?” 

“I will take care of it.” 

“How will you…” 

“Here, we have found something already. Open up your hand.”

Without thinking of it, Tamanna did so. Imran dropped in his hand a silver anklet, tarnished by the elements. He recognized it immediately -- it had belonged to his elder sister, who had loved to dance. She had died when she was young. Her anklets had been with his mother’s jewelry, all stolen now. 

Tamanna brushed off the dirt and shook the bells cautiously. They rattled, but were too stopped with earth to ring. 

*

The work went on for many days. Tamanna did not participate in it much. He mostly sat under the shade of the banyan tree and watched the progress. Some of the neighborhood children -- a tall, spare girl and her tiny, scowling brother, would come and watch as well. After the first few times Tamanna told them to leave and they ignored him, he invited them to sit under the tree with him to see the work. 

Tipu brought them cool lime juice to drink and fat, greasy samosas, and soon Imran came as well, streaked with dirt, and demanded a taste. Tamanna tossed one over to him, the heat of the oil stinging at his fingers. 

“I’ve been invited to a marriage interview tomorrow,” he told Imran, who was eating samosas as disdainfully as one could. 

“What foolish man would marry off his daughter to you?” 

“Come meet him,” Tamanna said, smiling, “and you’ll see.” 

“Why would you ask your friend to come with you to do that?” asked the girl, whose presence Tamanna had completely forgotten about. Her name was Putul or something like that, and her family’s home had been washed away in last year’s floods. He saw her often enough that he wondered if Tipu had hired her to keep the house. If he had, she was doing a poor job of it. 

Tamanna gave her a narrow look before he turned back his attention to Imran. 

“It’ll be a disaster,” Imran warned. 

“Of course,” Tamanna said. 

*

It was, in fact, an unmitigated disaster. The girl was silent, terrified of what was to happen and kept her eyes on the ground during the entire interview. Tamanna struck up a conversation with her older sister instead, though she was long-married and not even beautiful at that. But she had once been playmates with Tamanna’s sister and remembered her well. They spent a pleasant afternoon reminiscing, and in the evening, Tamanna was bundled off with a bag full of sweets and some words of thanks. 

“It was a pointless endeavor,” Tamanna told Imran, who appeared before him as he was making his way home in the twilight. Imran had followed him to the house, but had disappeared when Tamanna had stepped through the door. 

Given Imran’s proclivities, Tamanna hadn’t supposed that he would care too much about social niceties and such, but perhaps he was wrong. “I don’t even know what you are, Imran,” he said aloud. “Are you a jinn, really, sent to torment me? Come, let’s see your legs.” 

Obligingly, Imran stuck out a leg for Tamanna to observe. It looked ordinary enough, though it was shoed in one of Tamanna’s own sandals. 

*

That night, Tamanna had the dream of a hundred hands again. He moaned and moved against them, feeling their touch pushing against his body, everywhere, anywhere. It was pleasurable. He wanted it, though he was not sure what he wanted. In the dead of night, he woke up, sweating despite the cool breeze blowing through the open window. 

He was alone, but that was to be expected. Imran was not in the room down the hall from Tamanna’s, which had been given to him, but the journal he had pulled out of the archives was. Curious, Tamanna picked it up and lit a lamp. He started to read. 

The journal was for a single year in the life of his family -- one marked with many misfortunes. A business failed, a child died, a servant ran off with the silver. Then, a strange entry, written in March. _We have captured it,_ wrote the unknown author. _The curse is to be buried here, so we can be close to it at all times and ensure it will not escape. Let others judge me for what I have done, I can bear it no longer._

After a few pages, there was a note that the house was to be abandoned. The entries ended.

“The family curse,” Tamanna said aloud. He had always heard that his family was cursed, but how or why, he had never been told.

*

A week later, the workmen found a large earthenware jug that had been thrown down a bricked-up watering hole. After hours of sweat and effort, the jug was pulled out of the earth and presented, miraculously intact, to Tamanna.

All eyes were on him -- the workmen, Imran, Tipu, Putul and her brother -- all waiting for Tamanna to act.

“Tipu,” Tamanna said, after a long, strained silence. “Give me a hammer, will you?”

One of the workmen handed him an axe and with the blunted side, Tamanna brought it down hard against the wall of the jug. It cracked with a hiss of escaping air and broke open. 

It was empty. 

*

“I thought it was strange when I didn't recognize you,” Tamanna said, when Imran returned. He looked up to see Imran’s shadow fall across him. He smiled. “You dirty swine, there was almost a riot when the jug turned out to be empty, and you disappeared. I had to pay them with everything I had left.” 

“It wasn't empty,” Imran said. “I was in it.” 

“My family’s curse,” Tamanna said quietly. “Was it because of me that you escaped?” 

“In part,” Imran said. “But I should thank you -- I can be whole now, if you --” 

He hesitated and Tamanna cocked his head. “It's not like you to be shy. Weren't you the one who sent me those strange dreams?” 

“You enjoyed them,” Imran said sullenly. 

“Not relevant.” 

“If I become a part of you,” Imran said, “I could bring you prosperity beyond your wildest dreams. Your ancestor agreed to do it, before he grew weak and changed his mind and buried me here instead.” 

“What kind of thing are you? Can you change shapes?” 

Imran sighed and seemed to melt. In his place was a small white kitten that meowed plaintively. 

Tamanna clapped delightedly. “What a trick! How wonderful! All right then, climb in.” 

Imran, a man again, looked at him suspiciously. “You're sure about this? You won't change your mind and try to expel me later?” 

“I can't guarantee that,” Tamanna said cheerfully. “Why don't we just try it and see?” 

*

Tamanna left the house and the land around it to Tipu. There was no one left in his family to dispute it, but nonetheless, he had an lawyer look over the will before he left. Tipu would be happy there, perhaps, and Tamanna forgave him for taking the jewelry. It was a small price for devoting one's life to such a place, after all. 

Tamanna simply couldn't do it -- it was simply not the life that he wanted. Instead, he sailed away from the land of his birth with a relatively clean heart, his sister’s anklet and toy tiger, and two voices whispering in his head. 

He did not mind it -- at least, he would never bored again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:  
> \- Tamanna's name means wish/desire in Persian, thus the title.  
> \- Jinns are not supposed to have feet. If you suspect someone of being a Jinn, check their feet and then apologize. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to my beta, Isis! All mistakes are my own.


End file.
